Just bought a Macbook

So I finally bought a Macbook (2.4Ghz) model and have to say I'm loving it. I can't believe how quick the OS actually is compared to Windows. God knows why I settled for an inferior OS all these years but I'm here now! Can't wait for Snow Leopard should be even faster.

lol, and you're already anticipating the next OS. Well done you, that's the spirit and welcome to Mac!

Macs are all about the software in my opinion, it's why they're better. I can't wait for Snow Leopard myself as I actually find Leopard pretty slow compared to Tiger. It's still snappier than Vista though.

The hardware is nicer too. Every PC laptop comes with a big ugly black brick for a power supply.

In reply to a post by gilesjuk:

Every PC laptop comes with a big ugly black brick for a power supply.

And about 1/3 of the battery life and frequently running fans

I didn't even know the Macbook had fans until a firmware update warned that they would come on for a while

about 1/3 of the battery life

That means 15-18 hours battery life (as several PC laptops give you 5-6 hours)? Dell claim up to 19 hours for some of their latest laptops, but I take that with a pinch of salt.

I'm seriously impressed - that's good battery life!

Both my Acer laptops claim up to 4-5 hours... I get 2

I think the MacBook claims up to 9 hours, I normally get about 5-6.

In both cases that's with most of the default power-saving options turned off (or at least "reduced").

The 5-6 hours are from independent reviews rather than manufacturers' claims. As I said, Dell claim 19 hours and HP 24. I suspect their claims are as accurate as Apple's!

Welcome to my world.

Doesn't the MacBook need a power supply? I know that it's white rather than black, but....

Don't get me wrong. I love my Mac Mini, and I love OS X. It just amuses me that some Apple advocates feel the need to make exaggerated claims. I would have thought that Macs were good enough to not need hyped up advertising.

cf. Battery life.

Yes, it does, but it's only about 2½" square by 1" thick, and comes with an adaptor so that it will plug direct into a 13A socket if you're close enough.

It's also got a couple of fold-out "lugs" that you can wind excess cable around to keep it tidy.

Basically it's been designed and engineered, not just manufactured

edit- Forgot the magnetic power connector, so if you trip over the cable it pulls out instead of crashing the MacBook to the floor!

Edited by billford (Sat 07-Feb-09 12:09:53)

... and some PC laptops come with equally diminutive power supplies. As I said, I'm not disputing that the Macs are well designed - as are some PC laptops - it's the "all PC laptops" that is unnecessarily OTT.

It wasn't me who said "all PC laptops"

I described the MacBook PSU just for information really, as it seemed you hadn't seen one.

I think that, by quoting the phrase in your post about battery life, most reasonable people would think that's what you meant (when talking about battery life).

I've seen MacBook PSUs; I've also seen other manufacturers' PSUs. Apple make some very nice laptops - so do other manufacturers.

I hate the magnetic adapter! Im about to order my THIRD macbook pro power adapter because the join of the wire to magnetic adapter is about to snap again. I've owned several laptops and this is the first one that i've needed to replace the power cable. Im disapointed apple use such a weak cable.

There was an issue with the early design, aggravated by the tendency of people to pull them off by the wire, rather than the plug (in everyday use).

But Apple redesigned them. Mine has produced no problems and saved my bacon on one notable occasion.

Early design? My MBP is a late 2006 model, the current adapter is the one with the smaller type of power brick introduced last year. Do you know if they have redisgned them since? I hardly ever take my cable out of my laptop and i when i do i dont pull it out. My opinion is apple take a asthetic aproach first and a prectical apraoch second.

My opinion is apple take a aesthetic approach first and a practical approach second.

That does seem to be true particularly with their portable offerings (going by Press reports). I'm not convinced by the "designed and engineered, not just manufactured" description that Bill used. Designed, certainly - Apple have design aplenty - but with something like a PSU, I just want it to work and not break too easily. I don't really mind whether it looks pretty or not.

Don't know if the new Macbook is the same but the power connection is the only piece of the Air I really don't like. It's a silly, clumsy shape and if you're not careful will stick in the socket sideways - so not charging and the battery runs out of power unexpectedly.

I don't really mind whether it looks pretty or not.

On the contrary, i'd be much more annoyed by ugliness than a small weakness is design

My MacBook dates from Nov 2006 and though I've had problems with it [ well documented :D ] the power supply has given no problems at all.

My MacBook has been in France on several occasions and is often carried about .

Once or twice I have inadvertantly caught the cable and instead of the machine going flying , all that's happened is that the cable has come away from the MacBook - no damage.

According to Apple you should not just pull the connector out , but disconnect it by putting a finger underneath it and tilt it up towards the lid . If you do that it comes away easily.

I guess that's why I tend to buy cheap PCs (apart from my lovely little Mini, which was a present) and you buy expensive Macs.

Worth every penny. No antivirus, no bs just pure computing. I love the new LED screen on the Macbook - the clarity is just fantastic. Looking into getting a Mac Pro soon to put in the office with a 23" cinema display. ON a side note does anyone know what kind of accounting software is available for Mac i.e. my Dad uses Microsoft Money which downloads his online bank stuff - is there anything with similar functionality in OS X?

Cheers.

OH BOY - re MS Money

Nope - I use Quicken but that's no longer supported in the UK so various bits of it don't work [ printing cheques etc ] Having been forced into dealing with the financial stuff in a hurry I have found Quicken easy to use and for what I need it just works.

MacFriar still has to use MS Money as he has searched and searched and it is not compatible with any Mac Programme

No antivirus, no bs just pure computing.

It's often implied that the only alternative to OS X is Windows. Not true. It's easy (and free!) to get an OS that runs on a stock PC that really fulfils the "no bs just pure computing" claim. OS X certainly has it's fair share of bs.

I've never seen or used MS Money, Goldie what does it do anything like MoneyWorks or Cha-Ching?

Ooh found some more maybe
My Money
Liquid Ledger

Edited by deleted (Sun 08-Feb-09 09:51:33)

IMHO the magnetic power connector is a stroke of genius. When I had an iBook I was once burning a DVD with an external DVD writer, tripped over the power cable, and the iBook fell on the floor with the DVD writer landing on top of it. Somehow it didn't do any damage but it didn't half raise my heartbeat!

You've got me started on something now, I always download my bank statements but never check what's on them. With Cha-Ching I was able to log into my Barclays account and download an .ofx file from inside the app. Very cool, now going to create some smart folders and check what I spend most of my money on!

and check what I spend most of my money on!

You'll be sorry!!

Too right, £540 on telecommunications in 2 months!

I was just pointing out that the PSU for the Macbooks are small, well designed and attractive.

Completely different to the black brick on a rope style PC ones.

I even saw a Dell laptop PSU with a fan in it once! talk about rubbish design.

Name an OS with decent applications that runs on stock PC hardware?

Linux? nope, a few decent applications, but a lot of faffing about to get them working right or working at all.

Windows? lots of faffing again to keep it running nicely. 6 month reinstalls to keep it running fast.

OSX is the closest you get to a computer you turn on and use without too many irritations. Windows gets on your t*ts and it also gets in the way and reduces the stability of low latency audio. You have to use XP lite or other tools to cut away the junk.

I've run Logic Studio with a C compiler running on Linux (in Parallels) compiling code and had no glitches.

Name an OS with decent applications that runs on stock PC hardware?

Linux?

Got it in one (although FreeBSD would do just as well).

a few decent applications, but a lot of faffing about to get them working right or working at all

I'd have to suspect that you haven't tried recently, or tried at all. Something like Fedora is as easy to install as you like, on any hardware - not just expensive proprietry equipment - has just about any application that you can think of available for it, and none of the "glitz" that comes with OS X. Real computing at it's best.

Now as an iAddict I'd have to disagree with you claiming that walloping almost any flavour of 'lunix' on an el cheapo generic laptop will give that 'pure computing' experience touted before.

The entire point of apple approach is one homogenous environment, by keeping a limited set of hardware the 'just works' tag may have been subject to much flaming on digg/slashdot et al, but for your average none geek it's usually the case that it does 'just work' with the more mainstream computing uses.

For me personally, dual booting OpenSolaris11/08 and OS X with xVM for running virtual XP,Fedora and se7en instances on my MBP allows me to see (and get irked by!) the lack of 'polish' or 'glitz' as you put it,from apples competitors. Engineering and design have set the cupertino (hardware and software) offerings apart from the volume box shifters for a long long time now.

As for easy install, I've yet to see an installer thats as simple or as fast as the 10.5.4 install dvd. (you can make it even quicker if you remove the 4GB of printer drivers and language files from a default install).

Horses for courses. I run my OS X on a separate machine (it's a PPC MacMini so wouldn't be up to running virtual machines) and use PCs to run the Windows, Linux, OpenSolaris, and FreeBSD installations, with a few virtual machines to run the oddities like Windows Server and QNX.

I love them all, and wouldn't claim that any are the ideal OS. But, value for money, you can't beat the PC that I put together for £100 (plus an old case, PSU, and couple of hard disks that I had lying around) running Fedora. I can't get OS X running as cheaply as that.

Truth is there's no such thing as the perfect OS. My preference is for simplicity and accessibility, which is why I go for the Unix lookalikes. Others have different preferences, and I welcome the variety.

I used to run Linux full time on numerous computers. It works alright to a point, then once you've hit that point you have to recompile a kernel or some source code.

My media PC is Gentoo running Mythtv, it's the only version of Linux that I can tolerate and that works how I want it.

Sometimes you need a leader, a person at the top who decides what to allow or not. The open source people hate that and when disagreements happen in the open source world you get forks and all sorts of dramas.

Some people hate Apple's control freak nature, but on Windows there's a lot of developers who do their own thing and as a result the user experience is poor.

Applications for OSX tend to all be nicely written to the style guides and they don't have awful custom GUIs.

I was like that. Had loads of machines. Then I realised if I sold them all I could afford a Mac Pro and do it all nicely and effortlessly on one computer. So I did it.

Then later added a Macbook pro as I sit in the living room all the time and a laptop is easier.

No - just two machines (plus the Mac Mini which was a present). I'm afraid that even if I could sell the two for the price that I paid I still wouldn't be able to afford a new Mac.

Edited by deleted (Sun 08-Feb-09 22:36:33)

Truth is there's no such thing as the perfect OS.

Aint that the truth!

My preference is for simplicity and accessibility, which is why I go for the Unix lookalikes. Others have different preferences, and I welcome the variety.

Boxen that I log into occasionally (like my dell dimension 8300 based nexenta NAS & the IBM SFF PC running ESXi hidden away in a cupboard) usually are made up of unwanted spares and 'decomissioned' machines from clients - can't beat the Open Source OS for giving perfectly capable hardware a new lease of life.

But the machines I'm working with all day every day ALL run OS X. Fanboy zealot? maybe, love the shiney? Definately...